Data is one of the most important assets for organizations and individuals. Data loss or data breach can be very costly for both organizations and individuals. At the very least, critical data loss or breach will have a financial impact on organizations of all sizes.
As cloud storage and data sharing and collaboration become cheaper and better, more and more organizations and individuals move their data to cloud. This provides a central place for a hacker to break into the system to steal data. A cloud administrator with malicious intent may also be able to steal data. Examples of data theft and data breaches are not uncommon, even though all vendors declare that data is safe with them.
There is a strong need for a method and system that ensure the security of the data stored in cloud, and enable data owners to take over control of their own data, even when the data is stored in a public cloud, such as Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive and Box, and to share data with other people securely and confidently, knowing only intended people have access to the data. In case of a data breach the impact would be limited to an individual user instead of system wide.